Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates – Storming in Memphis
Hearing that someone likes the Replacements automatically makes their music more appealing to me. I admit that it still feels like partaking in a secret, but, I’m wrong. The Replacements certainly didn’t get the rewards they deserved, partly out of their own stubbornness, but you can certainly hear their music around. Usually, it’s not the Replacements playing it though, but groups of well-groomed men that made it on to the radio by basing their writing on Paul Westerberg’s.
Tucker Riggleman & The Cheap Dates have clearly heard Westerberg’s music a lot, but unlike their peers, they seem to have picked up some of their hero’s bad habits as well. Storming in Memphis showcases some of the sly humour and the desperation that characterized records like Tim and Let it Be. It’s a tendency that the aforementioned Mats admirers tend to erase in favour of melodies and a good time attitude.
Storming in Memphis, beautiful as it is, feels like it’s falling apart with each passing second. The vocal inflection doesn’t much help to suggest clean living was involved in the recording of this beautiful piece of music.
It’s a great record. But, just like watching a stuntman, you get the feeling that your own entertainment may have come at the expense of somebody else’s well-being. It goes with the territory, I suppose.
Vogue Villains – Let The Wrong One In
There are so many ways to approach playing the guitar even if, or especially when, you are playing it wrong. If hit with just the right groove and in just the right places, guitar chords can produce the effect of a heavy object being pulled and thrown down a flight of stairs. This is what the guitar parts to Let The Wrong One In sounded like for me and I was hooked on the spot.
The artists behind these daredevil antics are Canadian indie-rockers Vogue Villains. Their approach, as far as I can tell, is to take the frustration, let it simmer, and convert it into something wholly strong, yet danceable. In other words, this is the ideal indie-disco sound.
Dancing aside, the song does possess some bite, from the aforementioned guitar tone to a keys riff that sounds lifted from 90s gangsta rap. Half the battle to these tunes are the vocals, and in this case, they are as convincing and well-acted out as they can. Let The Wrong One In is radio rock for dancefloor fanatics condemned to spend recent times under lockdown.
